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Ahead of Goa assembly polls, sitting BJP MLA & Minister Filipe Nery Rodrigues quits party

Rodrigues an ex-Congressman is the sixth sitting BJP MLA and third cabinet minister to resign ahead of the polls

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Mumbai: Ahead of the February 14 Goa Assembly polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have been plagued by desertions. Sitting BJP MLA and State’s Water Resources Development Minister, Filipe Nery Rodrigues resigned on Thursday. He is the sixth sitting BJP MLA and the third cabinet minister in the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant-led government to quit ahead of the election.

Rodrigues is a sitting four-term MLA from the Velim Assembly constituency in South Goa. The BJP has dumped Rodrigues in favour of journalist Savio Rodrigues, who is the founder of an online media portal ‘Goa Chronicle.’

A disgruntled Nery, whose resignation was a foregone conclusion, had been contemplating making the move for some time now. Sources disclosed that he is expected to join the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is contesting the Goa election in alliance with the Shiv Sena.  

He was one of the 10 Congress MLAs who had defected to the BJP in July 2019 and had held the Velim seat for the Congress since 1999. Nery was supposed to have resigned last week itself after being denied the Velim ticket in the first list of 34 candidates announced by the BJP. He had deferred his decision at the very last minute.  

When the BJP announced its first list of candidates, Nery’s colleague in the cabinet – Goa Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Deepak Pauskar had quit the party after being denied the party ticket from Sanvordem constituency. The BJP had fielded ex-MLA Ganesh Gaonkar instead of Pauskar. 

Last week, another sitting BJP MLA Wilfred D’ sa from Nuvem constituency had quit the party. Earlier this month, sitting BJP Calangute MLA and Ports and Waste Management Minister Michael Lobo, BJPs most prominent Catholic faces quit the party and joined the Congress. 

In December 2021, two BJP MLAs Alina Saldanha and Carlos Almeida citing disenchantment with the BJP leadership under Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, had resigned to join the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress respectively.  

Other notable disaffected leaders following the announcement of the BJP’s first list of candidates included, former Chief Minister and founder member of the BJP in Goa, Laxmikant Parsekar. He was the Chief Minister of Goa between 2014 and 2017 during late Manohar Parrikar’s stint as union Defence Minister. 

The other being Utpal Parrikar, son of late Goa Chief Minister and BJP stalwart late Manohar Parrikar. Both Parsekar and Parrikar junior will be contesting as Independents from the Mandrem and Panaji assembly constituencies respectively. 

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